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Mel Silva, Co-Founder and Senior Strategist

Mel was born in Durango Colorado and raised on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in Southwest Colorado. He is an avid fly-fisherman and enjoys golf so much that he has his own putting green right out his backdoor. Mel found the Baha’i faith very early in life and dedicated himself to teaching it far and wide. At the age of 15 he enrolled in the Faith and began to travel. His travels took him to most of the Indian reservations in the Southwest, the San Luis Valley of Colorado, along the New Mexico Texas and Mexican border, Alberta Canada, among the various Native Reserves and Métis Colonies and eventually the Lewis Gregory Baha’i Institute in South Carolina. Mel attended the first Radio Baha’i School in 1979 in Puerto Rico, after which he earned his Federal Communications Commission’s Radio License, and ended up staying In Puerto Rico as a pioneer for 10 years. He traveled taught extensively throughout the islands of the Caribbean. In the mid-1980s his travels took him to Puno Peru in order to build a tower and install a wind generator to power the Radio Baha’i station in there. Mel’s early career in the culinary arts landed him a job in one of the finest resorts in Puerto Rico as a Chef; this was very advantageous to him as it afforded him an off-season in which to travel the world. Ultimately Mel founded a company in Puerto Rico called New Era Communications. It began as a language training Institute and quickly morphed into the leading microcomputer consulting firm in the Caribbean. In 1982 Mel married Mahvash Sheshbaradaran and eventually had three children: Ruhi, Tali, and Quddus. The family returned to the Reservation in 1985 where they have operated Waci-ci Trading Company for the last 30 years. He is currently preparing to go international pioneering again.